


vaticinum ex eventu

by spock



Category: The Society (TV 2019)
Genre: Banter, Canon Compliant, Coming Out, Flirting, Friendship, Gareth "Grizz" Visser Uses Sign Language, Language Barrier, M/M, Making Out, Mystery, Season/Series 02, Time Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:53:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28203420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spock/pseuds/spock
Summary: Tendrils of smoke drift out from Jason's mouth when he says, "Talking about our dreams seems a little gay, bro." He takes another hit, coughing as he gives Grizz a suspicious look. "This better not be boring."
Relationships: Jason Alvarado & Clark Beecher & Luke Holbrook & Gareth "Grizz" Visser, Sam Eliot/Gareth "Grizz" Visser
Comments: 12
Kudos: 58
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	vaticinum ex eventu

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pollitt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pollitt/gifts).



Grizz wakes up with words on his fingertips. It's become routine for him to shake off the half-curved shapes so that he can trace the lines of Sam's body instead. _And your very flesh shall be a great poem_ — it's Whitman; sometimes he wonders if Sam had a past life, multiple lives, even, where he served as muse to all the great poets. Grizz has a hard time imagining anyone but Sam inspiring words like that, especially in the early hours when his mind is fuzzy with sleep and their bed is warm from Sam beside him, so much more interesting than theories of reincarnation.

Except Sam isn't there for Grizz to read this morning. Grizz can tell that he's alone, squinting at the empty space. He rolls onto his back and blinks at the sight of the ceiling, confused.

It's the first time in at least half a year that Grizz can recall waking up without something aching, his body typically a living record of the full day's work behind him, even as his mind whirrs up to compile a list for the long day ahead. A life ruled by the sun. It's been at least three months since either of them have even left the Outpost. The first thing he’d done after he’d been designated provisional leader of New Ham’s agricultural satellite was build Sam and he a little one-roomed house to call their own. A minor luxury to make everything else more bearable.

Grizz pushes his hair from his eyes and tries to remember why it is that he's in his bedroom. He'd call out to ask Sam if he hadn't broken himself of that particular habit months ago. 

Some days he manages not to speak at al, and it's those that Grizz enjoys the most, the only sounds coming from the forest around them, the animals they’re slowly domesticating, the wind carrying distant murmurs of odd, far-off conversations from the others tending their own sections of land a ways away.

Sam's laugh.

The soft way he'll call Grizz's name to get his attention.

Lazing in bed isn't half as much fun when Sam isn't there to serve as a reason for Grizz to want to stay in it. The carpet staves off the usual frozen shock of a wood floor, and Grizz resolves to steal one of his mom's rugs to take back to theirs, saving himself from that particular annoyance once and for all.

He descends the stairs with one hand shoved down the front of his sweats, scratching at his thigh and hoping that the reason Sam's abandoned him is to make breakfast.

What he isn't expecting is to find his mom in the kitchen, setting the table.

"Oh for pete's sake, Gareth." She shakes her head at the sight of him, pointing towards the stairs in the hallway behind him. "I didn't raise you in a barn. Get dressed."

Grizz yanks his hand out of his pants and rushes across the room in an instant, hugging her. "What the fuck?" he mutters under his breath.

It's the wrong thing to say when she's close enough to hear him. She screeches his name, slapping his shoulder. "Language!" She pushes him back and frowns at whatever expression he must have on his face. "Are you alright?"

"I don't know." He crosses his arms across his chest, wishing he'd put on a shirt. Everything in the kitchen looks the same, boxes of cereal that he'd donated to the common cause after they'd done the grocery inventory suddenly right back where they'd been, everything accounted for even though it'd been used up months ago, before Sam and he had even relocated to the Outpost. "I think I'm dreaming."

She rolls her eyes. "Nice try, but you've gotta leave in about ten minutes if you don't want to be late." She pinches his cheek between two of her knuckles, stretching the frown on his face into a line. She'd done that all the time when he was a kid, her way of getting him to cheer up, and at least he can rule out body-swapping aliens from whatever the fuck is going on. "Go," she says. "Get dressed."

Grizz takes the stairs two at a time, ignoring his mom’s yelling for him not to run in the house. He kicks off his sweats and steps into a pair of jeans, shrugging on the first clean-smelling t-shirt littering his floor that he can find. He's back in the kitchen in under two minutes, sitting at the table and staring at his mom as she pours some juice for him.

"Do you know anything about what's going on with that smell, mom?" he asks. "Or, like, do you know if anyone's trying to do something about it? If there's an evacuation planned?"

She sits down across from him, picking up her phone. "I don't have time for this today, Gareth." Her thumb glides across the screen as she reads something. "And neither do you. Haven't you got that history exam? Did you study? Your father's back tomorrow and I certainly won't be the one covering for you if you get a bad grade." She finally looks at him and promptly starts frowning again. "Did you even wash your face?"

Grizz leans into the back of his chair, shaking his head. "Mom, the last thing I care about is my stupid history test."

She sighs and sets her phone face-down on the table, taking up her fork to poke at the eggs on her plate. "Well, that's just great, Gareth. I'm sure it'll take you far at Davis."

It's all so mundane.

Grizz starts to get a sinking feeling in his stomach, wondering if New Ham was the dream. He pushes his chair away from the table, legs scraping against the floor. His mother winces at the sound, but he cuts her off before she can give him grief for it. "I'm gonna go brush my teeth and then head out," he says, heading down the hall. "I'll see you tonight."

He locks the bathroom door behind himself and spends a full minute splashing water on his face, trying to orientate himself. Grizz has never thought of himself as particularly creative, but stress does weird things, right? Dreams can feel infinitely long as they're unfolding, their own contained reality.

Staring at himself in the bathroom mirror, the benefit of hindsight guiding him, Grizz starts to see some of the flaws in things he’d once taken for granted. The inconsistencies. There'd never been a clear answer to how they'd gotten to New Ham in the first place, no indication of who or what was keeping the water and electrical systems going despite the complete lack of anyone else existing on whatever alternate planet they'd been trapped on. Dewey's guilt, inconclusive and circumstantial at best. Campbell’s power grab practically from a movie in its pointless deviousness, chaos for its own sake.

What's weird is that Grizz can remember it all, the good and bad of everything that’d happened vivid in his mind, not slowly fading away like dreams usually do — but it _had_ been a particularly involved dream, and Grizz has always had a better memory than most.

If he’s being honest, it isn't even the strangest scenario his mind has dreamt up involving Sam Eliot being willing to give him the time of day.

Grizz grabs his toothbrush and doesn't let himself think too hard about why the thought of New Ham, fucking awful as it was, never existing makes him so damn sad.

Jason's parked in his usual spot when Grizz arrives at school. Grizz opens the door and drops into the passenger seat, stuffing his backpack into the footwell. "Dude," Grizz says, waving off the joint that Jason holds out to him. "You would not believe the crazy fucking dream I had last night."

Tendrils of smoke drift out from Jason's mouth when he says, "Talking about our dreams seems a little gay, bro." He takes another hit, coughing as he gives Grizz a suspicious look. "This better not be boring."

Grizz tells him about the camping trip being canceled due to a crazy storm and all of them ending up in some bizarro world that they couldn't escape. Them becoming de-facto police, Cassandra's murder, Campbell orchestrating a coup, half the town forced to learn the basics of primitive agriculture so that they don't fucking starve to death — all of it.

All of it that Grizz is willing to share, anyway, careful to talk around one specific detail.

"Holy fucking shit dude." The joint's burnt out between his fingers, Jason seeming to have forgotten he was in the middle of smoking somewhere around the point that Grizz started painting the picture of the shitshow that was New Ham's first Thanksgiving. "I don't even know who the fuck that Greg Dewey kid is, and you're telling me we shot his ass in the middle of the woods?"

Grizz shakes his head. "I couldn't do it, man. It was so fucked."

Jason stashes what's left of his roach in the ashtray, shaking his head. "Fuck."

Luke knocks on Grizz's window, spooking them. He exchanges a look with Jason before they open their respective doors and step out into the parking lot. "Bro," Jason shouts at Grizz over the roof of his car, "Tell Luke about your dream."

"You two sharing your dreams now?" Luke asks, making a face, but he shuts up as Grizz relays it all to him, dropping some of the superfluous details. Luke isn't as captive an audience as Jason had been, but Grizz figures that him starting the day off high as fuck probably made Grizz’s narrative painting a lot more interesting. They head inside the school, taking the long way around.

"You said Becca Gelb was pregnant?"

And that's — not what Grizz expected him to focus on. "Yeah, I think Sam Eliot was the dad or something," he says, purposefully being vague. "You and Helena got engaged like six months in. Shit was wild across the board, man."

Luke starts laughing, the weird bit of tension that’d overtaken his shoulders bleeding away as he shakes his head. "Dude, can you imagine?"

Jason comes between them and throws an arm over both their shoulders. "Helena definitely can, Lukey. Don't let Grizz tell her about it or she might say this was all some freaky Jesus prophecy. That girl is like five minutes away from putting a ring on a payment plan anyway."

They turn a corner in the hallway, heading towards their first period. Sam is signing to Becca a few doors, leaning against a row of lockers

Grizz nearly trips over his own feet.

"Shit! You okay?"

Sam's laughing, the back of his hand rising to smother the sound, the way he always used to do back when he was embarrassed by whatever he imagined his laugh sounded like. It'd taken ages for Grizz to break him of the habit. He'd made a fool of himself a million different ways, until Sam finally started laughing without being self-conscious about it.

"Grizz."

"Sorry, shit." He shakes his head, wrenching his eyes away from Sam. "Think I may have gotten a contact high, dude. I totally just zoned there."

Luke shakes his head. "That's not a real thing."

"It totally is!" Grizz shakes off Jason's arm and jumps on Luke, getting him into a headlock. He doesn't care if they’re here or in a desolate alternate reality, it'll be a cold day in hell when Luke knows something that Grizz doesn't. "They've done studies."

This is his life: hanging with his stoner friends; pulling grades that set him in the top percentile of their class; counting down the days until it's finally time for him to pack up his shit and move to California, ready to finally start living his life at a college where absolutely nobody knows him, where he can see a cute boy like Sam laughing and actually have the nerve to walk up to ask just what's so funny.

It's entirely possible that New Ham was one of those symbolic dreams. His life is on hold right now, just like it'd been when they'd disappeared.

Grizz doesn’t let himself look at Sam as they wander past him, finally hitting their classroom. He sits down in his usual seat and pulls out his phone to check the date. Just a little under a month until graduation. He can't wait.

He wakes just as sunlight starts coming in through his window. Grizz rolls onto his back and rubs at his eyes. His first thought is that it's weird not needing to rise with the sun, even though he knows that his routine never actually changed. The second is that it still feels weird to be waking up without Sam, and then he wonders why he's thinking in terms of _still_.

Grizz drags his phone from where it's gotten lost under the covers by its charging cord. He taps the screen to squint at the time and blinks hard.

The date's still the same as it'd been yesterday.

"What the fuck?" He mumbles, confused. Then he promptly rolls right back over to sleep until the alarm goes off for real.

It rings an hour later, and it’s only then that Grizz gets up, rifling through his closet to find a hoodie to shrug into for the day, which he counts as character development on his part. He stumbles down the stairs and into the kitchen, muttering good morning to his mom at the stove. He sits down in his usual spot and blinks at the empty chair to his left. "Where's dad?" he asks.

His mother doesn't bother to turn around, focused on the eggs she's scrambling. "I've told you a thousand times, Gareth," she says, "he'll be back tomorrow."

Grizz blinks. He could have sworn she said that yesterday. He knows better than to ask, not eager to sit through another lecture on how he fails to listen to her. She comes over and spoons eggs onto his plate. He leans forward to grab a couple pieces of bacon and wonders if it would be pressing his luck to ask her to fix him toast.

She sits down across from him after she's doctored her coffee the way she likes it best, eyes focused on her phone. "Did you study for that history exam of yours?"

"No," Grizz gets up, heading for the bread box after deciding on toast after all. "I took it yesterday, remember?" He looks over his shoulder, holding up the bag.

She shakes her head. He catches sight of her frown just as he’s turning back to focus on the toast, slotting in two pieces for himself. "Sorry," she says, "I could have sworn it was today."

He leaves for school not long after that, cutting through the parking lot and letting himself into Jason's car. "You know when you can tell that a day's gonna be weird as shit right from the start?" he asks, not expecting an answer. "I wonder if that dream's still fucking with me."

Jason coughs a few times. "What dream?"

Grizz seriously hates his friends. "Don't fuck with me, dude."

"Seriously!" Jason actually looks offended. "What dream?"

Something not unlike dread starts filling Grizz's stomach, pushing against his breakfast and making him feel sick. The smell of smoke clouding the cabin of Jason's car doesn't help. Grizz pops open the door and makes to get out.

"Where are you going?"

"I think I'm gonna ditch today, man."

“Dude.” Jason looks at him like he's grown another head. "You okay? You never skip when there's a test."

Grizz is fairly certain that he's gonna be sick. "My GPA can take it," he mutters. "Tell Luke I'll text him later."

He heads downtown, torn between wanting to run around the town's perimeter, checking to see if the rules that’d governed New Ham still hold, and wanting to duck into one of the alleyways so that he can toss up his guts until the world stops spinning.

What he's thinking is ridiculous. Impossible. Even more insane than New Ham.

His feet take him to the library before he's even realized that’s where he's going. The building is blissfully empty, and Grizz starts to feel a little more like his feet are on solid ground. He drops his backpack on the floor and sits at one of the computers, staring at the monitor.

He remembers the months he spent here, getting closer to Sam, both of them doing their best to research just how to survive all the unexpected threats New Ham kept throwing their way, ways in which to restart civilization from scratch. The practical knowledge they’d found in the books there had been invaluable, but so much of what actually helped them, in the end, had come from fiction.

It was hard to know even what to look for without some sort of starting point, Grizz learned that lesson early on. For some problems, it's nearly impossible, fiction giving birth to concepts and theories that science and fact only caught up to years later.

Grizz takes a deep breath and gets to work, pulling up Google and searching for time loops. He loses two hours reading plot summaries of books and films on Wikipedia. There's always some sort of lesson to be learned, or a wrong made right, but Grizz knew that much already.

It’s enough to have him looking into quantum physics; he has to put his hair up once he reaches the mid-way point of the article on general relativity, itching to do something with his hands as his brain tries to understand, connecting dispassionate words on the screen to what he might be experiencing. In the back of his mind there's this worrying doubt that he refuses to focus on, knowing that terror will likely paralyze him if he lets himself think about it outright.

So he won't.

Three o'clock comes quicker than he expected it to. Grizz knows from experience that he'll need some time to absorb what he's learned before he can put it into practice, so he packs up his notes and logs off, heading home.

The first thing Grizz does when he wakes up is check his phone.

"Fuck." He buries his face in his pillow and is proud of himself for not being so dramatic as to scream.

They'd all joked about New Ham being Hell. First circle, possibly second, depending on how things shook out. Grizz wonders if maybe this is him moving along the path, descending deeper.

He lets himself have a moment of despair, squeezing his eyes shut as the weight of that thought hits home.

 _Is_ it just him, or have they all been stuck into their own singular Groundhogs Day, whatever force it is that’d kidnapped them taking things a step further, isolating them from one another? What it means — Sam out there, trapped in his own personal loop, dealing with it alone.

Grizz sucks in a deep breath and pushes himself up onto his arms, fisting the sheets in his hands.

Time to get to work.

He's dressed and out the door a good hour before classes start, shouting goodbye to his mom and lying about needing to help set something up at school.

There's a small collection of kids out on the quad by the time he hits campus, band members and Spring athletes, mostly, and assorted others with pre-firsts or similar commitments. Grizz waves to the one's he knows, trying to come up with a plan on the fly for how to get the information he's looking for, even though he still isn't exactly sure _what_ it is that he's looking for. He steps into the main building, turning the corner of the hallway and —

Runs right into Sam. "Shit," Grizz says, circling a fist in front of his chest. "Sorry." He drops down to his haunches, picking up the books he's knocked from Sam's hands.

"Ah," Sam's hands sign along as he speaks. "It's okay."

Grizz shakes his head, standing back up. "No really, it's my fault." He's got Sam's books in one hand; it's instinct for the free one to go up to his shoulder and fold down.

Sam blinks at him.

"Uh, Grizz," he says, and Grizz is thrown for a moment by the quick fingerspelling that Sam does for his name, too used to the name sign that Sam had given him in New Ham. "You know ASL?"

It occurs to him that he shouldn't. That only Sam's family and his small, immediate group of friends do, and even they aren't as fluent as Grizz had become.

That Grizz still is.

And what it _means_ that Grizz still is.

That's proof that New Ham definitely happened then, at least. It's something of a relief, even if it means that Grizz has to worry about exactly where and when it is he'll be sent back once — _if_ — he breaks whatever weird loop he's currently trapped in.

That'll be a problem for another day, Grizz decides. One step at a time.

Grizz shifts Sam's books closer to his chest, buying himself time. He awkwardly pinches the fingers of his free hand together, looking unsure. "Uh, a little bit." Down the hall, he catches sight of their principal stepping into his office. "Oh shit, I gotta go. See you around, Sam!"

He runs down the hallway, letting himself into the front office. The secretary isn't at her desk, so he knocks on the principal's door and lets himself in before actually being given the go-ahead to do so.

"Good morning, Mr. Nieuwboer," Grizz says, hiking his backpack higher up his shoulder. "Sorry for just, uh, letting myself in. I wanted to ask about the upperclassman trip, if you have a minute?"

Nieuwboer looks at him impassively, which Grizz takes as permission to carry on. "They're saying that there's going to be a bad storm this weekend, so I was thinking you may want to like, cancel it? I guess?"

It's possible that he maybe should’ve thought more about this. Nieuwboer takes his glasses off, fixing Grizz with a look. "While I certainly appreciate your planning abilities, Mr. Visser, altering our schedule on a weather forecast for that far down the line just isn't feasible. I can promise you that if a front does actually crop up in the latter half of this week, myself and the staff will look into alternatives. It isn’t actually your concern. Now," he returns his glasses to his nose, picking up his pen. "I know that this is a very stressful time for you, so I'll leave you with this: you've done it, Mr. Visser. You've gotten into a school with an excellent reputation. How about you focus on finishing the semester strong and leave the logistics of running this school to me, hmm?"

Grizz knows a dismissal when he hears one. "Yeah," he sighs, mind already working to come up with a Plan B. "Thanks, Mr. Nieuwboer, have a good one."

He steps outside the office and is surprised to see Sam sitting in one of the chairs by the door. Grizz heads straight for him, hooking his middle and ring fingers together before flipping his palm up. "What are you doing here?" he asks.

Sam stands up, hands gripping the straps of his backpack tight. "You robbed me," he says, smiling a little. He points to the books that Grizz is still carrying, signing along. "I do actually need those, you know."

Grizz lets out a nervous laugh and pushes his hair behind his ears. "Wow, I suck." He gets ready to hand them back to Sam, then thinks better of it. "Uh, actually, what's your first class?"

It gets him a look like he's grown a second head. "Nelson," Sam says. "Why?"

The math classrooms are on the opposite end of where Grizz's homeroom is, but he can work with that. "I'll walk you."

"Is this a trap?" Sam asks.

Grizz laughs out loud. "No." He signs it too, grinning. "Why would you even think that? I've literally never given you a hard time."

He opens the door to the hallway, holding it for Sam to walk through first. Sam does, looking confused as he passes under Grizz's arm. "I think we've only talked like three times."

It takes actual, real self-control for Grizz to remember that he doesn’t have anything even coming close to permission to throw his arm over Sam's shoulder like his body is aching to, every instinct inside of him wanting Sam close. He’s completely off-kilter; teasing without touching Sam feeling sacrilege. "And you thought the fourth was going to be a trap?" he grunts. “Kind of an ambitious con.”

A blushing Sam is one of Grizz's favorite things. He nearly trips over his own stupid feet at the sight of it, Sam’s focused on reading Grizz’s lips even though it’s clear the last thing he wants to be doing is giving Grizz a clear view of his embarrassed expression.

Grizz wants to tell him how cute he is. How Sam never needs to be embarrassed around Grizz, that he’s so much more of a dork than Sam could ever imagine.

"I don't know," Sam's voice rises above its previous whisper, sounding completely exasperated. His signing is quick, words dropped in favor of a smoother transition, the way Sam only gets when he's excited or nervous. "You have to admit it's suspicious."

"Totally suspicious," Grizz nods. "I'm up to no good."

They've reached Nelson's classroom. He hands over the books when Sam reaches for them, giving him a small smile. Grizz wishes that he'd offered to take Sam out for coffee or something instead of walking him to class, the opportunity lost now, but then Grizz shrugs off the regret, knowing that he can’t risk being distracted.

"Have a good day," Grizz says, before making a face at how completely sociopathic that sounds. "Or whatever, I guess. Don't fall for any traps."

Sam gives him another smile, eyes cutting down to the floor. _Too late_ , he signs, and it takes every fucking inch of Grizz’s self-restraint not to let on that he’s understood.

He’s gotta get the fuck out of here.

Grizz doesn't bother checking the date the next time he wakes up, too busy trying to figure out his next plan of attack.

Nieuwboer being a bust throws a wrench into at least six of the plans Grizz managed to come up with. He considers calling in a threat to the school, but he can't see any other outcome besides him wasting one of his loops in a jail cell once they inevitably manage to trace back the call to him.

He breezes through his history test, now the third time he’s taken the damn thing, dropping it on his teacher's desk and leaving for lunch. Grizz figures that if the school isn't willing to do anything, City Hall should be his next best bet.

The building isn't that far from campus, and he's hoping that it being a random weekday will mean that everyone should be in the office without things being so busy that they can't see him as a walk-in.

What he isn't expecting is to run into Sam.

"What are you doing here?" Grizz asks, pinching his thumb and forefinger together before circling his open palms in front of him.

Sam is the platonic ideal of confusion, a smile creeping onto his lips as his head tilts to the side, looking at him like Grizz might be an idiot.

Grizz contemplates just what he has to lose if he just gave into temptation and surged forward, kissing the expression from Sam’s face, knowing that whatever damage that might come as a result will reset the minute he wakes up the next morning.

Sam said he'd noticed Grizz, back when things were normal. A very large part of Grizz wonders if that means Sam might kiss back, no questions asked.

It’s an appealing thought.

"My dad works here." Sam's thumb bounces off his forehead.

It's a politer answer than Grizz’s question deserves, probably. He makes a face at himself, rapping his knuckles on his forehead. "Sorry, I'm an idiot," he says. "That was rude. It's none of my business."

Sam's eyebrows rise. "You sign?"

Grizz shakes his head, before realizing that there isn’t any real reason that he has to lie about it. _Actually, yes_ , he signs, not bothering to voice at all. _I picked it up a couple months ago_.

Sam's eyes are as wide as saucers. "Why?" he asks, out loud, not actually signing at all anymore.

 _There's a deaf boy at my school_. Grizz grins at him, tucking his hair behind his ears. _He's pretty cute. I thought it might come in handy, one day, if I could actually get him to talk to me_.

Sam's confusion changes to embarrassment in a millisecond, his face going bright red. _Oh_ , he signs back, and Grizz notices that his hands are trembling. "I've got to go see my dad," Sam says, and his signs are rushed again, clipped. "Bye."

He cuts past Grizz, opening the door and speed-walking down the hallway.

Grizz runs a hand through his hair, pleased with himself, even though adrenaline is crashing through his veins, heart racing. It’s completely ridiculous, hardly anything like victory, but he still can’t believe that he’s here, standing in broad daylight in his hometown, having admitted to liking a boy, and somehow his world hadn’t collapsed in on itself like he’d always built up in his head.

It’s kinda fucking awesome.

He heads inside and introduces himself to the receptionist, getting right to the point. "I actually had a question about the smell from a couple of weeks back?" Grizz waves an empty notebook, knowing props usually make these things go a bit smoother. "My mom was wondering if we could get the contact info of the guy the town hired?" He rolls his eyes, doing his best to seem put upon. "She was thinking that if the guy could de-stink the whole town, our garbage disposal should be a cakewalk."

"Hold on, I think we just had the invoice come through today," the woman says, typing. "Have you got a pen?"

Grizz flips his backpack in front of him, undoing the zipper so that he can rifle through the front pocket. "One sec." He pulls one out, biting off the cap between his teeth. "Go for it."

He jots down the number, thanking her for her trouble, and then leaves, taking a seat on the bench out front.

He stares at Pfeiffer's phone number, wondering just what'll happen if he calls.

Only one way to find out.

It rings five times before someone picks up. The person on the other side doesn't say anything, the only indication that the call hasn't rolled over into voicemail being the faint, uneven sound of breathing coming through the other side of the line.

"Uh, hi," Grizz says, yet again realizing that he needs to start thinking these plans of his through, past the improbable wall that he keeps expecting to hit. "I wanted to ask about the job you did in West Ham, a while back. The smell removal?"

The call drops dead. Grizz pulls his phone away, staring at the screen with a frown.

He hits redial. Three chimes play before a robotic woman tells him that the number he has dialed is no longer in service.

It's possible that Grizz isn't meant to solve this alone.

He pulls up the group chat he has with the guys, still half-asleep himself as he sends fifteen rapid-fire texts full of emojis to hopefully wake their asses up before their alarms for once. It takes about five minutes, but he starts getting back angry replies, which is all he needs to know that it works. He says for them to meet at the school's parking lot in thirty minutes, otherwise they’re officially dead to him.

Jason's on his way to lighting up just as Grizz lets himself into his car. Grizz snatches the joint away from him and stubs it out before he can, needing the guy's to be as clear-headed as possible — which really isn’t saying much, even on the best of days.

"What the hell, dude!"

"Focus," Grizz says. "Seriously, man, I said it was important."

Jason sulks for the three minutes it takes for Luke and Clark to arrive, the pair of them sliding into the backseat.

"This seriously better be good, Grizz." Clark's eyes are bloodshot, and it doesn't look like he's combed his hair. "I went to bed, like, two hours ago."

Grizz gives them a quick overview of New Ham, shouting for them to shut up whenever they try to interrupt. Once he feels like they at least understand the basics of the odd, alternate universe he’s meant to be in, he starts trying to contextualize the loop he’s gotten stuck in, watching as their expressions become more and more skeptical, until he’s finally got them caught up to where he is today. "I swear I haven't been smoking up and I am not fucking with you," Grizz stresses, hitting what he knows will be their initial reactions. "I just need you to fucking accept what I'm saying and help me figure out what the fuck is going on. Fucking humor me, here. You know I’d do it for you."

They all sit, staring at each other. Grizz bites at his thumbnail, waiting for them to actually say something.

"Why you, though?" Luke asks, breaking the silence. "Like, what makes you so special?"

"No idea." Grizz pushes his hair off of his face and uses his teeth to bring the hair tie he has on his wrist up to his fingers, collecting the majority of his bangs into a topknot so that it stops falling into his eyes. "I don't know if it's just me, or if all of us are reliving some random fucking day without being able to actually contact one another. There could be a clueless clone of me in whatever loop you guys are in too."

Jason shakes his head. "Dude, Grizz is like the smartest asshole to ever come out of this shitty town," he argues. "I bet all of us voted for him to be the one to solve this shit and just didn't tell him. Our boy invented fucking agriculture in New Hamburg or whatever. Who else do you trust to solve a fucking riddle?"

Clark snaps his fingers together, pointing at Jason as he nods along. "True."

"Please focus." Grizz tries to keep his patience. "I need ideas about what I'm supposed to do while I'm here, not conspiracy theories about why it's me to begin with."

They all look at one another, silent again.

Luke sighs. "Okay, so when we were in the alternate universe or whatever, you guys looked through everything and the best you could do was come up with a name for the smell removal guy," he says, ticking one finger as he goes along. "When you got here, you tried talking to Nieuwboer and that was a bust."

"Shocker," Jason adds, which causes them all to shrug. Luke ticks another finger.

"Then you got the smell dude’s number and he fucking dipped like a Bond villain or some shit." Grizz nods, and Luke holds up another finger. "Was there anything else about the smell? Or today, I guess? Like, do you remember what happened today, the first time? Anything important?"

Grizz tries to think about it. Days had started to blur together by this part of the term, each one bringing him just that closer to being set free from West Ham once and for all, sure, but uneventful beyond that. "I don't think so," he says, sounding unsure even to his own ears. "I gotta be honest, guys, this is basically a year in the past for me. I don't remember shit. I know two days from now the smell comes back, in the middle of the play, and then everything gets fucked when we leave for the trip. Today was just, I dunno. Fucking average."

Clark's taken his phone out, but he looks up from it, realization. "What if you have some shit you need to do?"

Grizz leans into the back seat and slaps Clark upside the head. Jason and Luke join in, cursing at him. "Yes, asshole,” Grizz says, “that's what we've been fucking talking about this entire time!"

Clark frowns, shoving them away. "No, you fucking dicks. I mean like, I'm sure the smell shit is important, but what if you have some big fucking regret that you need to take care of? Like, today was _supposed_ to be important, but you fucked it up.”

Grizz blinks, genuinely impressed.

Some of the surety bleeds from Clark’s face, and he licks his lips. “That's what the internet says, anyway."

Grizz feels a bit less blind-sighted knowing that Clark’d been googling instead of apparently turning into a savant, suddenly spouting fucking insights out of nowhere.

Jason whistles. "Oh, like some personal growth-type shit?"

"That's not bad," Luke agrees, eyes turning to Grizz. "You got any unfinished business, dude?"

Grizz thinks about it. "I mean," he says. "I'm gay?"

Three pairs of eyes stare at him like he’s grown another head, or maybe said that he’s killed before, once or twice. Grizz feels like he can hear the ticking of a clock that definitely isn't there, worried that he’s made a huge mistake, wondering just how quickly it is he can go back to bed and have another shot at this conversation.

"Which one of us would you rather fuck?" Jason asks, right as Clark goes, "Do you have a crush on me?"

"Guys!" Luke actually looks mortified. "What the fuck?"

"Well!" Jason shouts. "I don't know! It was a weird time to just come out." He seems to remember that Grizz is actually there with them and reaches across the center console to awkwardly take Grizz's hand. "Grizzy, I'll make out with you if it ends your loop, buddy, don't worry about it."

Clark nods, "Yeah, Grizz, if you need to suck my dick or whatever, it's fine, we don’t have to make it weird."

Grizz rubs his fingers against his forehead, rolling his eyes. "Yeah, thanks, guys. I appreciate it," he sighs. "Somehow I doubt that not coming out to you guys on a random day last Spring is my life’s greatest regret."

"That's true.” Jason shrugs. “But wait, bro, that must have sucked. Were you, like, the only gay guy left on Earth after we all got raptured or whatever?"

"Nah," Grizz shakes his head. "I started dating Sam Eliot."

Luke claps his hands together, shouting. "Dude! That totally has to be it. Maybe you need to start dating him before you go to the bizzaro world."

Grizz stares at him for a long moment. "Okay, but like — why?"

Jason shrugs, popping the car door open and kicking his leg out. "Why you? Why this day? Why was it us who got ganked to some fucked alternate universe and not those punk ass bitches over at Saint Anselms? Some shit just stays a mystery no matter how hard you fucking cry about it. It's not like it's gonna kill you to give it a shot, right?"

"I mean," Grizz thinks back to some of the loops he's gone through already. "I flirted with him before? Way more than I did before this loop shit, or whatever. Shouldn’t that have done it?"

Clark holds up his hand for a high five. "Hell yeah, Grizz," he whistles. "Get it." Grizz shakes his head and slaps Jason's hand, knowing that he won't give up otherwise. "Maybe it has to be on purpose though,” Clark says, clearly guessing as he goes along. “Or you have to, like, actually kiss him. Or fuck him, even. Flirting without actually doing shit about it is pretty lame, dude. We aren’t in grade school."

Hard to fault the logic there.

Grizz ends up sitting on the front steps of the school, waiting for Sam to show up. After ten solid minutes of he and Luke trying to get it through Clark and Jason’s thick skulls that no way would Sam take him seriously with the three of them hovering around Grizz like demented fucking wingmen, Luke dragged them away in the end; Grizz knows that he seriously owes him one, even if the best case of this weird-ass plan will mean that Luke has no idea that he’s actually done Grizz a major solid to begin with.

He leaps to his feet as he spots Sam cutting across the grass. He stands there awkwardly shifting on his feet, hands stuffed into the front pocket of his hoodie, until he practically spasms in his haste to yank one arm free, waving to get Sam’s attention once he’s close enough to talk to. "Uh, hi. Sam?" he asks. "I'm Grizz," he signs his name slowly, like he isn't sure how to.

“Hi.” Sam gives him a confused smile. “I know?” Grizz’s stomach twists itself into knots in the same instant that his heart melts.

He’s so fucked.

"Cool, cool." Grizz nods a few times, trying to remember what it is that he’s supposed to say next. "Uh, so, like, your dad works for the city, right?"

"Yes?"

"I have a paper that I need to work on, for AP Chem," he adds, even though he can't imagine that Sam actually gives a shit. "I was wondering if you could maybe help me get some information about the smell from a while back?"

"Uh, sure?" Sam hooks the other strap of his backpack onto his arm, pulling it on over both his shoulders. "Is that it?"

Grizz makes a face. "Kinda," he says, without bothering to elaborate. "So I'll see you after school?"

"Sure." Sam nods, looking unsure. "I'll text my dad to let him know."

"Awesome. Thanks, seriously." Grizz smiles at him, trying to give off something besides the psychopathic energy he can’t help that's coming off him in waves. "I'll meet you here."

The rest of the day drags, Grizz constantly checking the time on his phone. He has lunch with the guys and they talk strategy, like getting Sam to hook up with Grizz is one of their football plays. All of their advice is absolute garbage, but at least it keeps Grizz's mind occupied long enough that the second half of his day goes faster than the first.

Sam's waiting for him after the last bell, standing off to the side of the steps as their classmates file by, just like he’d promised. He's got his books held up to his chest like a shield, his eyes following Grizz as he walks towards him, expression mildly terrified.

"You came," Sam genuinely sounds surprised.

It makes Grizz laugh. "I'm the one that asked you, remember?" He shakes his head. “You’re seriously doing me a huge favor.”

Sam shrugs, like people keeping their word isn't anything that he expects. It pisses him off, but Grizz also knows that he'll be the one who changes that, eventually, and does his best to grin though his anger

"You ready?" he asks. "I can carry your books," he offers, nodding at Sam’s chest. "Your backpack seems pretty full. Plus, don’t you need your hands to talk?"

"I'm fine!" Sam protests, but doesn’t put up much more fight when Grizz reaches to take them for him. “Uh, thanks, I guess.” He arches his fingers away from his chin, looking embarrassed.

They start walking off campus together, heading downtown in silence. Every few seconds Sam will look at him from the corner of his eye, way too obvious to even be generously categorized as sneaky.

Grizz has about the same amount of shamelessness, blatantly staring at Sam as they make their way along the sidewalk, to the point where their eyes actually catch a few times in their assessment of one another. It’s him who breaks first, laughing when their eyes have met for what has to be the fourth time in a two minute span. "What?" he makes sure to ask it when Sam’s looking at him, so that he doesn’t miss it.

Sam’s eyes jerk away like he's been caught stealing. "Nothing," he says. Then, "You know how to sign your name?"

Grizz nods, stepping forward so that he’s in Sam’s line of sight. "My name," he lists, "Your name."

" _My_ name?" Sam asks, pointing at himself

"Sure." They're just about at City Hall. "They say you should memorize the important stuff first, right, when you’re learning a new language?"

Sam's face heats up, his expression becoming helpless. "What?" he stutters. "I — can you talk slower? I think I misread your lips."

"Doubt it," Grizz says, winking at him. “We’re here.” He nods to the building. "Did you say your dad was meeting us?"

Sam's father walks out just then, briefcase in hand and typing something on his phone as he catches sight of them. He ruffles Sam's hair, seemingly oblivious to the embarrassed, panicked look that crosses Sam's face as he does. "Sorry buddy," his father says, handing over a ring of keys. "Got a dinner meeting that just popped up. Can you guys lock up after yourselves?" His signing is a little bit distracted, both of his hands occupied so that he can’t really shape them well. Sam visibility struggles to follow him, eyes narrowing as they dart between his father’s fingers and mouth.

"Haven't seen you around before," Sam's father notes, focusing on Grizz as he slips his phone into his suit pocket. He repeats what he’s just said in sign language, clearly for Sam’s benefit, so that he isn’t left out of the conversation.

"Uh, yeah. Hi, Mr. Eliot." Grizz shifts Sam's books into his elbow, extending his hand towards Sam's father. It's weird to think that this is technically the first time that he's meeting his boyfriend's dad.

It’s weird to think about a lot of things in his life, lately, though, so Grizz decides to just roll with it, like he has with everything else.

"I'm Gareth,” he says, signing first his name, then hooking his pointer fingers together as he rotates his wrists. “Sam's friend. It's nice to meet you." He can feel how clammy his palms have become as they slide together, and it isn’t that much of an act as he awkwardly finishes the greeting, pointing at Sam’s father like a man waiting for the verdict at his execution.

His being able to sign, even shakily, seems to have gathered him at least a little goodwill. Sam’s father flicks his eyes from Grizz to Sam, clearly understanding from Sam's awkwardness that, on some level, Grizz and his son aren’t what can generously be categorized friends. He frowns at Grizz, the grip of his handshake just on the wrong side of painful.

He looks like he doesn't trust Grizz with Sam at all, which is completely fair; if he knew what Grizz and Sam got up to most days back in New Ham, he'd probably kick Grizz's ass.

As it stands, though, Grizz hasn't had the chance to do any of that yet, so he tells himself that he doesn't actually have anything to feel guilty about. He swallows and stands up straight, trying to look like something approaching the kind of guy a father wouldn’t worry about leaving his son with in an empty building. "I really do appreciate this, Mr. Eliot. I sorta put this assignment off until the last minute."

Sam's father tsks, but seems to buy the lie. "Don't stay too late," he says, signing to Sam. "And double-check that it's locked."

 _Okay, dad._ Sam smiles at his father and goes to open the door for Grizz.

"Hey." Grizz turns to look at Sam's father, who has positioned himself so that Sam is at his back, unable to see his face as he speaks. "Don't mess with my son."

Grizz wonders if it's weird to enjoy this sort of thing. There's something nice about it, satisfaction flowing through him to have an adult acknowledge Grizz's interest in another boy, even if he doesn't actually like the fact that Grizz _is_ interested. Like Grizz’s interest is normal, inevitable. He can’t quite bite back his grin, even as it makes Sam’s father frown even harder. "Wouldn't dream of it, Mr. Eliot."

He walks through the door, forgetting that he shouldn't be as familiar with the building as he is, heading straight for the records room without waiting for Sam to guide him.

"Uh," Sam calls, the door slamming loudly behind him. He isn’t shouting as hard as he probably should be, but Grizz is used to being hyper-aware of Sam’s voice, the way that Sam’s always worried that he’s being too loud, quieter than needed as a result. "I don't think we can actually go in there."

Grizz stops, realizing his mistake. He turns around. "Ah, totally; sorry." He scratches at his neck. "I don't actually know where I'm going," he laughs. "Which way to your dad's office?"

Sam leads him down a different hallway, using one of the keys to open a door. "You said this was for a chemistry paper?" he asks.

"Yeah," Grizz nods, turning on the light so that Sam can see his face better. "The smell. I'm kind of phoning it in, to be honest. I tried doing research at the library, but it was a bust."

He drops his backpack into one of the chairs beside the door, taking more care with Sam's books as he props them up to lean against the arm. He walks over to the desk, gaze skimming over the papers there as he tucks his hair behind his ear. He looks back at Sam. "Your dad handled that, right?"

Sam takes off his own backpack, dropping it next to Grizz’s as he wanders closer. "I think so." He moves around some of the papers, reading them. "He doesn't talk about work much. Oh," he gasps. "Dang."

"What?" Grizz steps closer, hovering at Sam’s shoulder and seeing the invoice that Sam’s holding, billing the city over a million dollars. "Dude," he laughs. "Holy shit." Sam doesn't react, and Grizz realizes it's because they aren't facing one another.

Usually he would step closer, press his chest to Sam’s back so that Sam can feel it when Grizz laughs or talks, cutting down the barrier between them.

But he hasn’t earned the right to do that yet, so he ducks down instead, binging his face next to Sam’s hold on the paper. Grizz makes a face, spinning his pointer finger next to his ear. "That's crazy!"

Sam gives a startled laugh. "You're funny." He says it like it's genuinely surprising, returning the invoice to the stack of papers on top of the desk.

"I mean," Grizz shrugs, "I try?" He gives Sam a small smile, standing back to his full height.

Sam has to tilt his head back to look at him from how close they’re standing. He licks his lips, rolling them into his mouth for a few seconds. "Why did you learn to sign my name?"

Grizz swallows, feeling nervous even though he knows that he doesn't have any real reason to. Sam’s interested. They’re so good for one another. He brings his hands up from where they’d been down at his sides. He mouthes along as he signs, but doesn’t actually bother to voice, _why do you think_?

Sam's hand balls into a fist, something passing across his face. He uncurls his fingers, reaching up to touch Grizz's cheek.

It's extremely brave, all things considered. Grizz constantly finds himself in awe of Sam.

He licks his lips, clearing his throat. "Would it be okay if I kiss you?" Grizz asks, "Or?"

Sam surges up, fingers gripping the front of Grizz's letterman jacket. Grizz kisses Sam back the minute their mouths actually connect, arms hooking under Sam's to help pull him up, knowing from experience that Sam has to be balanced on his toes just then. Grizz turns them so that he can sit on the edge of the desk, inverting their usual height difference. Sam makes a surprised sound but adapts quickly, kissing down into Grizz's mouth.

It’s probably cheating, doing all the things that he knows Sam likes right from the start, but Grizz has never been one to pretend like he doesn’t know the answer when he does.

They pull apart, panting for breath. Sam's pupils are blown wide, shadowed by the long fan of his eyelashes. "Fuck," Grizz breathes, "I missed this."

Sam looks shocked. "You've kissed a boy before?" Their faces sway in and out of kissing distance; Sam’s lips graze against his as he speaks, the heat of his breath warming Grizz’s face before Sam sways back to put distance between them, eyes focused on his mouth, waiting for Grizz's response.

It’s distracting as fuck. Grizz nods, realizing that he’d almost given himself away. "Yeah," Grizz says, vaguely. "Just one."

He watches Sam's mind work, his eyes narrowing. "Was it Jason?" Sam asks.

Grizz makes a noise like he wants to die, anguished that Sam can’t actually hear it. He pretends to tip over to the side as he makes a disgusted face, clutching at his stomach. Sam laughs and catches him, holding Grizz upright. "Oh my god." Grizz shakes his head. "What is with people assuming that I want to make out with my friends?!"

"Sorry," Sam's laugh carries throughout the room, filling it. "It's not you, I promise." He manages to pull a straight face, even though he loses it a beat later, laughing again. "He just kinda seems like the type."

Grizz leans in, nosing at Sam's neck, knowing that he's sensitive there. Sam seizes up just like planned for him to, breath going shallow, and Grizz pulls back, grinning. "What type?"

Sam's focus is on his lips again. "I dunno," he says, sounding distracted. "The brojob type, I guess?"

Grizz chokes on his own spit. He starts laughing again, demanding, "Say that again." Sam's expression shutters, torn between embarrassment and insecurity. Grizz falls over himself to add, "No, you said it fine!" He traces Sam's face with his fingers, trying to smooth away the worry with touch as much as with words. "It's just really funny hearing someone like you say brojob."

"Like me?" Sam repeats, looking unsure.

"Yeah." Grizz nods. "Like, an actual person with a brain."

Sam still looks like he doesn't quite buy it. He licks his lips and stares into Grizz's eyes, assessing him. "Brojob," he repeats, after a moment.

Something about it hits differently for Grizz, this second time around. “Shit.” His mouth suddenly feels dry, and he swallows. "Again."

Sam's expression becomes sly. "Bro," he slowly draws out the vowel, "job."

"Fuck." Grizz leans in and licks his way back into Sam's mouth.

Even though he knew it was a longshot, Grizz still feels a keen sense of disappointment when wakes up alone in his childhood bed, nothing changed. He lays there until his alarm goes off, scrubbing a hand across his face as he gets out of bed, finally deciding to just fucking go with it.

After being trapped on an alternate Earth where everyone he’s grown up with always seems one bad decision away from potentially killing one another, a random, unending loop of one of the most mundane fucking days of his life really isn’t that bad, in the grand scheme of things. Especially since it turns out that he isn’t half fucking bad at romancing his boyfriend into getting together with him, again and again, in new and exciting ways he hadn’t even thought possible.

His mom grills him about his history test over breakfast, and he lets himself enjoy her company, the two of them talking about the logistics of his upcoming move over the summer, how she’s looking forward to seeing the school’s production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, what time they’ll pick his dad up from the airport tomorrow, Grizz unbothered by the fact that tomorrow won’t actually ever come, nevermind the rest.

Jason's hotboxing in his car, and he passes the joint to Grizz as he slides inside to join him. They’re quiet, listening to Jason’s vibing playlist, grunting at Luke when he eventually joins them just before first period is due to start.

"Where's Clark?" Grizz asks, sniffing as he hands over what's left of the joint for Luke to finish.

"Probably overslept." Luke shakes his head, taking a hit before licking his finger and pinching out the roach. "His dumb ass stayed up all night watching that one chick on Twitch."

"Uh oh," Jason cackles. "Gwen better watch out."

Luke snorts. "Dude, it's worse. He's stuck on a level of some game. He watched like twenty Let's Plays and still couldn’t figure that shit out."

Grizz whistles. "Tragic."

They head inside, navigating the packed hallway. They turn a corner and Grizz spots Sam a few doors down, signing to Becca.

He thinks about last night, making out with Sam in his dad's office until the security guard had shown up and scared the shit out of them. Walking Sam home, promising to see him the next day, Grizz knowing that one way or another it'd be a promise he’d keep, even if it wasn't in the way Sam meant.

"Fuck, I forgot about the history test," Jason groans. "Probably shouldn't have started the day with a bowl."

Grizz shrugs. "Well, they say being stressed is one of the main things that’ll fuck your performance. Maybe being chill as shit will mean you'll ace it?"

Jason stares at him blankly. For a second Grizz thinks that Jason’s going to call him out, but Jason grins instead. "Dude, you're totally right! Thanks, Grizzy." He swings his arm over Grizz's shoulder, hugging him.

Erika walks past them, heading in the opposite direction, talking with her friends. "Yo!" Jason shouts; he lets go of Grizz as quickly as he’d swarmed him, trailing after her even though the bell is going to ring soon.

"I'm always like, legitimately impressed by how good you are at lying, dude." Luke shakes his head. "He seriously ate that shit up."

Grizz snorts. "It's called being a supportive friend, Luke," he says. "You should give it a try." They walk through the door of their classroom, settling into their usual spots.

"How about you support me by letting me see what you got on that Chem homework?"

*

His English teacher wraps up the day by assigning one last paper to finish out the year, pointless busywork that Grizz always had doubts that she'd actually grade. She rattles off the topic, telling them she wants it the Friday before they head out to the National Park for their week in the wilderness. Grizz has the same thought that occurred to him the first time she’d given the assignment, and makes plans to knock it out within the day, even though he knows that the due date won't actually come this time around.

Grizz thinks back to the paper he’d written over a year ago, trying to remember which of the four books he'd originally checked out that'd been the most useful. The library is pretty much a ghost town when he gets there, and it's easy to move through the shelves to the reach section where novels are housed.

This is where Grizz finds Sam, reaching for something on the top shelf.

He remembers, suddenly. Watching as Sam struggled to get a book far beyond his reach, too high up even as he strained on his tip-toes. How Grizz hadn't done shit about it, hiding a few rows over until Sam had given up and left. He'd been so caught up in his own bullshit that he actually believed anybody they knew, self-involved assholes that they all are, would’ve given even the slightest shit that they’d spotted Grizz Visser with Sam Eliot for the literal second it would have taken Grizz to help Sam get whatever book he was too short to reach on his own in the library after school. That he'd let his weird, closeted bullshit actually keep him from being a decent person. 

And how ridiculously shameful he finds it now.

Grizz wanders over, coming up behind Sam to see what it is that he's trying to get. He steps forward, leaning to the side and waving to get Sam's attention.

Sam flinches at the sight of him, momentary surprise turning into a shy smile. "Hi," he says, waving back.

 _Hey_ , Grizz mouthes. He points to the top shelf, raising his eyebrows. _Which one_?

Sam's eyes follow the direction of his finger. "Oh. Walden." Sure enough, there's a heavy, leather-bound edition right there on the top shelf. Grizz laughs, and Sam’s smile turns confused.

 _Nothing_ , Grizz shakes his head. _Good choice_. He steps closer to Sam, placing a hand on Sam's back to steady himself. _One second_. Grizz stretches up, trying not to show that Sam being so close to him, staring up at Grizz in wonder as if his height is some kind of superpower, actually has his heart racing.

Grizz’s fingers skim and hook the top of the book’s spine, and he pulls it down. Sam hasn't moved away, and Grizz doesn't exactly feel like doing so either.

 _Here you go_. He hands the book over, Sam's fingers brushing against his as he takes it from Grizz.

Sam holds the book to his chest and brings his other hand up to his mouth, signing _thank you_ without voicing.

Grizz mouthes back _you're welcome_. Their eyes catch one last time before Sam gives him an awkward wave goodbye and heads for the front of the building, disappearing from Grizz’s view.

It's too hot when Grizz wakes up the next morning. He tries to turn over but his legs protest even the brief attempt at movement, throbbing with a dull ache. There's a boney shoulder digging into his chest. He groans, and beneath him he can hear the faint sounds of Sam's sleepy laughter.

"Are you growling at me?" Sam asks, laughing harder. Grizz manages to get one of his eyes open and sees Sam's face close to his on the pillow, gentle smile spread across Sam’s face.

Sam.

In their bed.

Grizz leans in and kisses him, swallowing up the sounds of protest Sam makes at his morning breath. He forces his body into motion, hooking a leg over Sam's hip, pulling him closer as he kisses Sam deeper. "I missed you," he says, punctuating each word with a kiss. "I'm so fucking tired of this weird-ass, cursed planet."

Sam's hands come up to grab at his cheeks, pulling Grizz's face back from his, putting enough space between their faces that he can see Grizz’s mouth. "I have no idea what you just said."

Grizz flips them so that Sam is on his back in their narrow bed, Grizz hovering over him. He settles himself on Sam’s legs, pushing his hair away from his face. _I had a fucking_ , Grizz knocks his hands together for emphasis, signing as quickly as he can, _insane dream_.

He tells Sam everything, shifting to sit on the bed so that Sam can sit up too, signing questions and asking for clarification whenever Grizz gets off-topic.

 _Did you find out anything_? Sam asks.

Grizz thinks about it. _Yeah_ , he signs back. _That if I hadn't been such a giant fucking baby, we probably could have been fucking since, like, middle school_.

Sam tackles him onto the bed, somehow managing to snag the pillow in the middle of doing so, which he uses to smother Grizz. "Oh my god!" he shouts. "About why we're here, Grizz!"

It takes a second, but Grizz manages to fight Sam off, pinning him to the mattress. He smiles down at Sam. "I think it was just a really shitty, long dream," he says. “And there’s no reason to read into it.”

"Think." Sam insists. “What if it does mean something, and you forget?”

Grizz does as he’s told. "There was an invoice in your dad's office," is the best he can come up with, signing. "For like, a million dollars or something. I tried calling the Pfeiffer dude and he changed his number in like, half a second, it was wild. That’s about it."

Sam looks like he's seen a ghost. He pushes off Grizz's weak hold on him, freeing his hands. _1.5 million_?

That's — "Yeah," Grizz nods. "That was the exact amount. You knew?"

 _I don't think it was a dream_. Sam licks his lips, starting to look guilty. "A few days after we got here," he says, signing along as he speaks, voice not much more than a whisper. "Becca and I went looking for an explanation, at the city hall. She started feeling bad and went home, and that's when I found a paper." He cups his hands, squeezing his fingers and biting his lip before carrying on. "Campbell came by to get the car keys from me, and I told him about it. Our dad and uncle had sent a letter to Pfeiffer refusing to pay. It was dated two days before the smell came back that second time."

Grizz does the math in his head. "I think my loop was the day before they sent that," he hedges, trying to line up the details. "His secretary said that the invoice had just come in, or something."

Sam looks worried. "What do you think it means?" His fingers stroke Grizz's chest for a second before he pulls them back, signing, _I'm sorry I never said anything_.

Grizz shakes his head, capturing Sam's hand before he can sign anything else, bringing it up to his mouth and pressing kisses to Sam's fingers. _It's ok_ , Grizz signs back, one-handed. He tucks Sam's hand under his chin, revealing his mouth. "It's not like it changes anything."

It doesn't seem to have convinced Sam much, frown still marring his face. "You said the loop stopped when you did the right thing, right?" he asks, looking resolved in whatever conclusion he's reached. "We have to tell the Council." He makes a face. "I have to tell them." He pulls his hand away from Grizz, fingerspelling _t-r-e-t-c-h-e-r-y_. "It's the worst circle, right?"

Grizz really doubts that Dante has this in mind when he’d come up with the idea for his poem. Grizz himself gave up on trying to think that any of this was actually a part of some greater plan a long time ago. It isn't his job to figure out what caused their abduction, and he has no idea what it'll take to get them back. All he cares about is making sure that he and Sam are alright, regardless of where they end up; as long as he can manage that, he’s happy to roll with the punches as far as everything else is concerned.

If this is something Sam thinks he needs to do, though, Grizz will support him every step of the way.

"I'll let Mickey know that we're taking off," he says, smiling. "We'll head back for the town today, alright?"

Grizz receives a weak smile for his trouble. Can’t have that. Grizz leans in, rubbing their noses together as he cards a hand through Sam's bedhead, mussing his hair further.

Sam tilts his head, bringing their lips together, and Grizz kisses him as firmly as he can.

They pull apart after a moment, resting with their heads pressed together, Grizz appreciating the silence of their home. He licks his lips and then gently knocks their foreheads together before pulling back, catching Sam’s eye. "Hey," he says. "It's gonna be okay." He signs it as well, _we will be okay_. 

Grizz’ll make sure of it.

**Author's Note:**

> Two things: 
> 
> First, Happy Yuletide! I was also devastated that Netflix denied us a second season of this great show. I researched the vague plans that the showrunners shared about what s2 would have been, but this is more inspired by the general direction they implied than containing outright confirmed spoilers, in case that sort of thing is a concern. It seems like they had a _lot_ of tropey literary inspiration for s2; since Grizz was the surprise favorite of s1, I like to imagine that he (and Sam) would have gotten a little bottle episode to explain and explore certain tropes that were planned, and thus this fic was born. 
> 
> Second, the title is a historiographic term referring to a prophecy written after the author already had information about the events being "foretold", specifically in cases where the text is written so as to _appear_ that the prophecy had taken place before the event, when in fact it was written after the events it supposedly predicted. I feel like that s2 would have played around with this type of hindsight bias a lot, and Grizz would absolutely know the latin for it, because of course he would.


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